1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to connectors for coaxial cable. More particularly the invention relates to an inner conductor contact arrangement with improved inner conductor dimensional variance capacity, assembly characteristics and electrical performance.
2. Description of Related Art
The inner conductor contact of a coaxial connector couples with the inner conductor of a coaxial cable. Surrounded by the connector body and/or mechanical connections between the connector body and the outer conductor of the coaxial cable, the inner conductor contact is typically formed with a plurality of spring fingers biased inward to securely grasp the outer diameter of the inner conductor as it is inserted between them during interconnection of the connector and cable.
Spring fingers, alone, provide an interconnection with the inner conductor having limited strength characteristics, unless the spring fingers are dimensionally large, which introduces an impedance discontinuity to the resulting connector. Further, assembly becomes increasingly difficult as the spring finger inward bias is increased to achieve a correspondingly stronger interconnection with the inner conductor. Also, high bias spring fingers increase the possibility that the spring fingers will scrape the inner conductor during insertion, which increases the chance for generation of passive intermodulation (PIM) distortion.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,335,059 titled “Coaxial Connector Including Clamping Ramps and Associated Method”, issued Feb. 26, 2008 to Vaccaro, owned by CommScope, Inc. of North Carolina as is the present application, discloses a connector incorporating an insulator movable along the connector longitudinal axis having an outer diameter shaped to assist with flaring of the outer conductor and an inner diameter shaped as a wedge surface to progressively engage a cable end of the inner contact spring fingers, progressively biasing the spring fingers inward against the inner conductor as the inner conductor is inserted between the spring fingers during connector assembly. When assembled, the insulator provides an inward bias upon the spring fingers and improved support of the inner contact to inner conductor interconnection.
Competition within the coaxial cable and connector industry has focused attention upon improving electrical performance as well as reducing manufacturing, materials and installation costs.
Therefore, it is an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus that overcomes deficiencies in such prior art.